Tuskegee Airmen of WWII

Originator of Tuskegee Airmen passes...One of Last Original Tuskegee Airmen Instructors Dies at 96 Nov 18, 2015 -- Milton Pitts Crenchaw, a flight instructor who trained the Tuskegee Airmen -- the first African-Americans to fly combat airplanes in World War II -- has died in Georgia. He was 96.

Crenchaw died Tuesday at Piedmont Henry Hospital near Atlanta after battling cardiovascular disease and pneumonia, said his daughter, Dolores Singleton. A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Crenchaw was among the last surviving instructors of the Tuskegee Airmen, Singleton said. He was among the original flight instructors in the program that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted to train black pilots for war, she added. "He began that whole flying experiment -- I really think that's what it was because they didn't think it was going to work," Singleton said Wednesday. "For a black man to be able to fly, that's just like an astronaut now," she said.

The training at Tuskegee was the U.S. War Department's answer to a shortage of pilots, along with mechanics and other ground support personnel needed to maintain aircraft for battle, according to historical accounts from Tuskegee University and Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a national group that supports the airmen. In an era when black military personnel were fighting segregation and being arrested at installations like Freeman Army Airfield in Indiana, the Tuskegee Airmen were integrating the U.S. war effort at the front lines.

Milton Crenchaw, who was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen speaks with Thessia Dunn before a lecture series at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock, Ark.​

"At the same time that black officers were incarcerated for resisting segregation at Freeman Field, for example, other black officers were earning Distinguished Flying Crosses and aerial victory credits by shooting down enemy airplanes in combat over Europe, while still other black cadets were learning to fly military airplanes," Daniel Haulman of the Air Force Historical Research Agency wrote in a 2015 chronology of the Tuskegee Airmen.

Crenchaw, who became a pilot while studying at the Tuskegee Institute in eastern Alabama, trained hundreds of pilots there in the 1940s, according to a biography by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. "Crenchaw became a primary civilian flight instructor and eventually one of the two original supervising squadron commanders under Chief Pilot Charles A. Anderson," the biography states. "He and Charles Foxx were the first instructors for the first group of student pilot trainees between 1941 and 1946." Later, Crenchaw helped establish an aviation program at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, according to the center's biography.

Another Tuskegee Airman flies to the Great Beyond...Dabney Montgomery, Tuskegee Airman who safeguarded Martin Luther King Jr., dies at 93September 4,`16 - For Dabney Montgomery, the indignities at home stung more because of the noble tasks he performed for his country abroad  serving with the Tuskegee Airmen to help win World War II in a role that would eventually earn him a Congressional Gold Medal.

But at a train station in Atlanta in 1945, carrying an Army duffel bag over his shoulder after receiving his honorable-discharge papers, he was abruptly confronted with Jim Crow America. Before I could get in, a white officer threw up his hands [and said]: You cant come in this door, boy. You got to go around the back,' Montgomery told Alice Bernstein in a video interview. You cant come in here; youre black. You got to go around the corner.' Montgomery, who served as a member of the all-black fighter group and, decades later, as a bodyguard to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. died at age 93 of natural causes Sept. 3, his wife, Amelia Montgomery, told the Associated Press.

Montgomery protected King during the famous 1965 march to Montgomery from Selma, Ala.  Montgomerys home town. Heels from the shoes Montgomery wore in that march will hang in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, which opens Sept. 24, according to Smithsonian magazine. Montgomery was born in 1923 and inducted into the armed forces in 1943, serving in what was then the Army Air Corps as one of the Tuskegee Airmen. They got their name because they trained at Alabamas historically black Tuskegee University, which had a civilian pilot-training program, according to the universitys historical page about the airmen.

Tuskegee Airman Dabney Montgomery waves to the crowd as he is introduced before the start of a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles in June 5, 2013.​

Black servicemen who trained at Tuskegee faced discrimination in the armed services and at home, but the Red Tails, as they were known, distinguished themselves in a March 1945 bombing run to Berlin and by discovering a German destroyer in the harbor of Trieste, Italy, according to the university. The tenacious bomber escort cover provided by the 332nd Red Tail fighters often discouraged enemy fighter pilots from attacking bombers escorted by the 332nd Fighter Group, the university said. Despite the exploits of the airmen, Montgomery said he was often smacked with discrimination at home.

In Selma, fresh out of the army, he tried to register to vote, according to the Bernstein interview. A woman there, he said, told him that he had to find three white men that would endorse me as a good negro that would not cause any trouble in Selma, Alabama, if I voted. When he returned with the endorsements, he said, he was denied again. This time, the woman said, it was because he did not own land in Alabama.

Story of the Tuskegee Airmen told in veteran's memoir...Veteran's Memoir Tells the Story of the Tuskegee Airmen1 Aug 2017 | Harold Brown enters the Liberty Aviation Museum on a Monday morning wearing a smile. One can't help but feel the calming energy surrounding the 92-year-old Air Force veteran.

A Redtail Squadron logo is visible on his navy polo shirt as the former Tuskegee Airman walks through the museum. His enthusiasm registers in numerous ways, from offering bits of information about the small model airplanes hanging from the ceiling to stopping to have his picture taken with passing guests. There's no question that Harold Brown is pretty recognizable in this part of town.

2014 Liberty Aviation Museum Port Clinton OH​

An 11-minute black-and-white Tuskegee film plays on a projector as Mr. Brown takes a seat at a round table in a room on the opposite side of the wall. He begins to speak about his upcoming book, "Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story Of A Tuskegee Airman," scheduled to hit stores Aug. 8. "It brings back all kinds of memories," he says. "Good memories, bad memories. It reminds me of how close I've come to dying on more than one occasion." The 270-page memoir was co-written by Brown's wife, Marsha Bordner, or as she describes the process: "He's the hero; I'm the teller."

She was compelled to finish the book to demonstrate the hard work it took the 992 Tuskegee pilots to fight not just against the Axis of Evil abroad but also racism and prejudice at home. "This group of men had to fight the military and our society at large for an opportunity just to prove they were smart enough to fly an airplane," Bordner, 67, says sitting next to her husband. "They really believed [it]. The people of that time said, 'Well, you know, the Negroes wouldn't be bright enough. They might be able to [fly] a little Piper Cub, but they couldn't possibly fly a complicated aircraft.' The Tuskegee Airmen really laid the ground[work] for the civil rights movement." The book focuses on three phases of the Minneapolis native's life, divided into "The Early Years," "The War Years," and "The Post War Years."

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After years of collecting materials for the book, Marsha Bordner found herself with hundreds of interviews, transcripts, and tapes of details about her husband's life. "The last two years I decided it was time to finish it, so I really buckled down and started working all the time," she says. "It was time to finish it." The first part of the book, "The Early Years," provides insight into what life was like in Minneapolis during the 1920s and '30s, which Bordner says had a black population of less than 1 percent. The book also details the former Tuskegee pilot's ancestry, from his parents' journey to the north during the Great Migration to Brown's vision of becoming a pilot.

Another Tuskegee airman passes away...Floyd Carter Sr., One of the Remaining Tuskegee Airmen, Dies at 9512 Mar 2018 - Floyd Carter Sr., one of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen, dedicated his remarkable life to serving his country and his city.

The decorated veteran of three wars and 27 years with the NYPD died Thursday at age 95, leaving a long legacy as a groundbreaking hero pilot and a city police detective. Carter, who simultaneously rose through the ranks of the U.S. Air Force Reserves and the police, was honored in 2007 with the Congressional Gold Medal by President Bush for breaking the color barrier in Tuskegee. "We mourn the loss of a true American hero," read a tweet from the 47th Precinct in his adopted home of the Bronx. "Our community & nation has lost a giant." Carter rose to the rank of Air Force lieutenant colonel years after joining the group of African-American pilots at Tuskegee University. He met his wife Atherine there, where the Alabama native was working as part of an all-female repair crew. Carter wooed his bride-to-be on several dates in his plane, and they were married at the air base in 1945.

In 2012, Carter joined "Star Wars" filmmaker George Lucas for a screening of his film "Red Tails" about the Tuskegee Airmen -- the first black aviators in the U.S. military, trained in Alabama as a segregated unit. In addition to serving during World War II, Carter flew during the Korean and Vietnam wars and led the first squadron of supply-laden planes into Berlin during the famed Cold War airlift of 1948-49. During the Tet Offensive, Carter flew U.S. troops and supplies into South Vietnam. His NYPD duties included work as a bodyguard for visiting heads of state, and Carter spent time with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Soviet head Nikita Khrushchev, recalled his son Floyd Jr.

Tuskegee Airmen Floyd Carter (left) Dr. Roscoe Brown, Dabney Ian Montgomery and Wilfred Difore leave the field of at The NFL And Red Tails Salute To The Tuskegee Airmen On Veteran's Day Weekend During the New York Jets Vs. New England Patriots Game at Met Life Stadium on November 13, 2011 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.​

He earned a half-dozen citations for his outstanding police work, and survived a number of shootouts with armed bandits. "He's got a little history," said Floyd Jr. "We were blessed, we sure were. He went from what I call the outhouse to the fine house. The Lord blessed him." The Yorktown, Va., native joined the Army Air Corps in 1944, and was commissioned a year later as a 2nd lt. bombardier navigator. In 1946, he received his pilot wings and transferred a year later to the Air Force Reserves. By the end of his tenure in 1974, he was commander of the 732nd Military Airlift Squadron at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

Carter joined the NYPD in 1953, earned his detective's gold shield within three years, and retired in 1980. He once recalled talking politics with Castro, and believed the federal government needed to open a dialogue with the bearded Communist. Oddly enough, Carter was called up for active duty during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Carter remained active into his 90s, serving in November 2015 as the grand marshal of the annual Veterans Day Parade in the Bronx. He was honored by ex-Congressman Charles Rangel in 2005 with a proclamation for his lifelong achievements. Carter was survived by his wife of more than seven decades and their two children, Floyd Jr. and Rozalind, along with grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were not yet finalized.

Tuskegee Airman Robert Martin, shot down over Germany, dead at 99...Tuskegee Airman Robert Martin, shot down over Germany, dead at 996 Aug.`18 - Robert L. Martin, a combat pilot who said he flew "63 and a half" missions during World War II as part of the barrier-breaking Tuskegee Airmen, was shot down over German-occupied territory on the 64th and spent five weeks trying to return to Allied lines with the help of Josip Broz Tito's anti-fascist Yugoslav partisans, died July 26 at a senior living center in Olympia Fields, Illinois. He was 99.

The cause was pneumonia, said his daughter, Gabrielle Martin. Martin, known as "Fox," grew up in Iowa and became entranced by airplanes when he attended an air show as a 13-year-old Boy Scout. He persuaded his father to let him take a ride on a Ford Trimotor. "And the pilot, after starting the engine, buckled me in, he touched me with a wire and shocked me, and he said, 'You're going to be a pilot,' " he remembered in a video interview for the Experimental Aircraft Association, a Wisconsin-based international association promoting recreational flying. During college, Martin completed a civilian pilot-training program, joking that for a small fee "you could get silver wings and get all the girls."

War was raging when he graduated from Iowa State University. He joined the Army Air Forces and trained at the segregated military complex in Tuskegee, Alabama, in January 1944. With the rank of lieutenant, he immediately set sail for Italy and was attached to the 100th Fighter Squadron, which helped provide cover for Allied bombers on missions over targets in Europe. On March 3, 1945, he was one of 24 Tuskegee Airmen who climbed into their single-seat P-51 Mustang fighters from their base in Ramitelli, Italy, to conduct a rail-strafing mission in parts of Slovenia and Austria. Two pilots did not return - Martin and Alphonso Simmons. "We flew over this airfield where there was no opposition," Martin said in 2008 at Chicago's Pritzker Military Museum & Library, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "We saw two airplanes parked a little bit off the field, and we said, 'We'll get more credit for destroying two airplanes than shooting up a railroad train.' We went in to shoot up these planes."

Lt. Robert L. Martin flew scores of missions with the Tuskegee airmen.​

Martin and Simmons were hit by antiaircraft fire. Simmons was killed. "I said, 'I'm not going to fry, I'm going to get out of here,' " he recalled in the Pritzker talk. "I got up high enough to bail out and my beautiful parachute opened and knocked me out - cut my chin open and floated me down to earth." He was spotted by members of Tito's partisan forces, which controlled swaths of Yugoslav territory; Tito became Yugoslavia's postwar Communist strongman. Taken to a farmhouse, Mr. Martin was greeted by one of Tito's men as a "warrior on the side of the Allies," he told the Experimental Aircraft Association. "The guy fried me an egg and gave me a glass of grappa when he found I was hungry, and just told me to sit and wait."

On March 10, he was taken to Topusko, Croatia, where he met with an Allied mission manned by British soldiers that helped downed Allied airmen. Because Topusko had natural hot springs, Mr. Martin said, it was the ideal place for recovery. "They could take a bath in the natural hot spring bath house, get rid of all the lice and dirt and whatever, and they had clean uniforms, shoes, food to feed them, whiskey, candy, books, a safe house, there was meat and flour and all types of foodstuffs dropped in by parachute to help these downed Allied airmen," he said to the Experimental Aircraft Association. After a month, he was airlifted to Bari, Italy, and weeks later he celebrated V-E Day in Naples. He soon embarked on a ship for home.